The Value of Public Lands

“Public lands” refers to forests, wetlands, prairies and other lands that are owned and managed by a state, local or federal government body — and financed by your tax dollars. “Public lands” refers to those lands that are open to the public and maintained for recreation and/or conservation. Governments also own lands that are not open to the public, such as sensitive wildlife areas, conservation easements and other lands whose primary purpose is for preservation or resource extraction.

In the United States, the federal government manages about 640 million acres of public lands, which constitutes nearly a third of all land in the country.

The Florida Wildlife Corridor is a statewide network of nearly 18 million acres of connected ecosystems that support both wildlife and human populations. The corridor includes currently protected properties like state parks, national forests and wildlife management areas, but also maps key areas that must be protected to maintain wildlife movement pathways, prevent habitat fragmentation, protect drinking water sources and enhance connectivity between natural lands.

Public lands provide countless benefits, including:

• wildlife and habitat conservation,
• water protection, including drinking water resources,
• recreational opportunities,
• boost physical and mental health and quality of life,
• cultural or historical preservation,
• economic benefits including recreation-based tourism,
• naturally mitigating the impacts of climate change and sequestering carbon from the atmosphere,
• advance research and science.

Our state parks are an investment in our future. More than 28 million people visit Florida’s state parks each year creating $3.8 billion in economic impact. That’s why we must continue to protect them for their primary purpose: to conserve ecologically essential lands.

Many public lands provide space and/or amenities for various activities including:

• Bicycling
• Birding
• Boating
• Camping
• Fishing
• Geo-Seeking
• Hiking
• Horseback Riding
• Hunting
• Paddling
• Picnicking
• Roller Blading
• Scuba Diving
• Snorkeling
• Star Gazing
• Surfing
• Swimming
• Tubing
• Walking and Running
• Wildlife Viewing

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection manages 175 state parks, trails and historic sites as part of its award-winning Florida State Parks system. The Florida Park Service is one of the largest in the country with 175 state parks, trails and historic sites spanning more than 815,000 acres and 101 miles of sandy white beach. The Florida Forest Service (Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services) manages more than 30 state forests across the state, totaling nearly 1.2 million acres.

As staff to the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund (Governor and Cabinet), the Florida Department of Environmental Protection provides oversight for the management of activities on more than 12 million acres of state-owned lands including lakes, rivers and islands. DEP buys land for preservation, sells surplus state property and provides mapping and survey services for state-owned lands. DEP also specializes in geoscience research that helps guide regulatory and policy-making decisions.

DEP’s Division of State Lands works closely to inform and implement acquisition and sales with the approval of both the Florida Cabinet and the Acquisition and Restoration Council (ARC). The Acquisition and Restoration Council (ARC) is a 10-member group comprised of four state agency representatives, four Gubernatorial appointees, one Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission appointee and one Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services appointee. ARC evaluates, selects and ranks state land acquisition projects on the Florida Forever Priority List; reviews management plans; evaluates proposed uses of state-owned conservation land; and reviews tax credit requests for conservation easement properties containing fewer than 40 acres.

The U.S. National Park Service, (U.S. Department of Interior) protects and manages 63 parks across the U.S. National Parks in Florida includes Everglades National Park, Biscayne National Park and Dry Tortugas National Park.

Use this map to find Florida State Parks: Find a Park | Florida State Parks

Find other recreational opportunities here: Map Direct: Florida Outdoor Recreation Inventory (FORI) Map

Find a state forest: State Forests / Our Forests / Forest & Wildfire / Home - Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services

Conservation easements help protect nature from development while keeping management under the financial responsibility of the property owner for a variety of terms. Some easements are perpetual while some are for specific time frames like twenty years; TNC in Florida is only supportive of perpetual easements. 

- Fee-simple transactions (like buying a home, for example) use considerations of land ownership for a monetary value. Less-than-fee-simple transactions like conservation easements focus on land use or activities, trading the rights of what activities can and cannot happen on the land. A conservation easement is a voluntary legal agreement between a landowner and a land trust or governmental agency that permanently limits or restricts certain uses of the land in order to protect its conservation values. Most easements “run with the land," remaining with the property even if it is sold or passed on to heirs, binding present and future owners to the easement's restrictions in perpetuity. 

Conservation easements are negotiated under the guidance of the Florida Forever and Rural and Family Lands programs, that have rigid rules, guidelines and conservation objectives. Conservation easement terms are negotiated by the landowner and the entity that will hold the easement, designed to meet the needs of both parties by targeting only those rights necessary to accomplish specific conservation objectives. The easement terms must be specific and detailed and can apply to an entire ownership or just a portion of an owner’s property. The terms can be structured to allow landowners to continue using their land for agricultural, business and/or recreational activities, while the landowner agrees to protect critical resources, threatened habitats, endangered species and even work toward habitat restoration goals. 

Florida is growing at an unprecedented rate. To protect rare and sensitive land in Florida, stakeholders act with diligence, urgency, collaboration and creativity. TNC in Florida protects land as a natural solution to climate change, to stop and reverse species loss and to support the health and wellbeing of Florida communities.

Conservation easements help protect nature from development while keeping management under the financial responsibility of the property owner for a variety of terms.

Conservation easements have become a key model for collaborative land conservation and have allowed TNC in Florida and our partners to protect thousands of acres from development. 

The main programs TNC works with are: 

• Family Lands Protection Program (FL Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services): Agricultural land preservation program designed to protect important agricultural lands, funded through Florida Forever, the state of Florida's conservation and recreation lands acquisition program.  
• Federal Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) program, administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The ACEP Program provides money to buy Agricultural Land Easements and Wetland Reserve Easements.  
• Federal Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program (U.S. Department of Defense): Cost-sharing partnerships for the military with state and local governments and private conservation organizations to address the need for compatible land use and conserved natural landscapes in support of military readiness.  

Mitigation banking is a conservation tool that helps mitigate the negative impacts of development, including destruction of vital wetlands. Mitigation banks are protected lands where an environmental enhancement and preservation project is conducted by a “banker,” often a public agency or a private entity, that sells credits to a permittee. The credits represent the wetland ecological value equivalent to the complete restoration of one acre. The number of potential credits permitted for the bank and the credit debits required for impact permits are determined by the permitting agencies.

Chapter 373.4135, Florida Statutes, states: “Mitigation banks and offsite regional mitigation should emphasize the restoration and enhancement of degraded ecosystems and the preservation of uplands and wetlands as intact ecosystems rather than alteration of landscapes to create wetlands. This is best accomplished through restoration of ecological communities that were historically present.”

Most if not all mitigation banks are closed to public use.